For me “I’m a libertarian and I support the Washington Redskins” is right up there with “I’m from the government and I am here to help.” It makes my shoulders twitch and I feel creepy-crawlies run up and down my spine.
It all started in the run-up to Superbowl XVIII played at Tampa Stadium on January 22, 1984. The highly backed patrician ruling-class Redskins faced the underdog blue-collar working-class Raiders. Their respective QBs had some history as they had competed together for the highly prestigious Heisman Trophy back in 1970. Redskin QB (then with Notre Dame) Joe Theismann changed the way he pronounced his name from Thees-man to Thighs-man to make it rhyme with the name of the vaunted trophy in order to garner more votes. When Raider QB (then at Stanford) Jim Plunkett convincingly blew away Joe and also famous father Archie Manning (2,229 to 1,410 to 849), the Thighs-man camp infamously said that Jim had only won it because both his parents were blind. Please. What a classless act.
Happily the Raiders smashed the Redskins, leading 21–3 after just one quarter and scoring on special teams, defense, and offense. The final score was 38–9, and the record books had to be rewritten. Poetic justice?
One additional happy result of that total whipping was that the distinguished MVP scholar Charles Murray renamed his book of the mid-’80s, the book that shot him to stardom. As he recounts on pages xiii and xiv of the tenth anniversary edition, the working title had been F****** Over The Poor — The Missionary Position. Then it became Sliding Backward, but while he was watching the sad sack ‘Skins go nowhere late that Sunday, the title Losing Ground was born. Some TV commentator probably said something such as “the ‘Skins lose yet more ground to the Raiders,” and a light went on in Murray’s head.
There is only one good reason for the continued existence of the Landover Looters, and it is simply this: every single time they lose, absenteeism within the federal government soars the following Monday.
Eighteen months later I moved from California to northern Virginia and wall to wall, front to back, ceiling to floor ‘Skins fandom. There was no soccer (DC United) and no baseball (Nationals) and the basketball (Bullets) and ice hockey (Capitals) barely registered on the local sports radar screen. All that these rent-seeking, tax-guzzling federal employees and their hangers on cared about was the Redskins. Forget the country. They were totally nuts, completely besotted. There was a 30-year wait for season tickets and probably still is. People had to die before you could advance up the list. And it was all so PC that when the gun death-rate in DC hit record levels the Bullets had to be renamed and chose to be the Wizards.
In defense of all the other pro sport teams named Washington or DC, at least they all play there. The so-called Washington Redskins play in Landover MD and train in Ashburn VA. One wonders how many of the players and staff live in DC and how many in the suburbs or even further out.
I am curious as to why all five major sports leagues have to have a DC area franchise. Surely this cannot be connected to the special status that sports leagues enjoy under federal regulations.
There are large echoes here of the equally despised British soccer team Manchester United (fondly known in Manchester itself as “the scum”) which regularly sits atop the English Premier League. It plays in a city called Stretford, and its players live in the next door, very tony county of Cheshire rather than more downmarket Lancashire.
Hence the joke, How many soccer clubs are there in Manchester? Two: Manchester City and Manchester City Reserves. And hence the sign at the Manchester city line when Carlos Tevez signed to leave United for City: Welcome to Manchester.
The name refers to a criminal act of destruction of private property, deception, and sleight of hand; commemorating an attempt to point the finger of a crime falsely at a minority.
Common sense surely dictates that just as Manchester United should be renamed Stretford United so the Washington Redskins should become the Landover Redskins or perhaps the Landover Looters, to reflect the dominant local industry. It is simply dishonest to trade the way they do. They are living a lie.
But why is the team called the Redskins in the first place? What has the swamp of Washington got to do with Native Americans other than as a source of subsidy and special treatment? The answer is that the franchise started in Boston, Mass., as in the place where white patriots dressed up as Native Americans and chucked all that tea overboard. So the name refers to a criminal act of destruction of private property, deception, and sleight of hand; the name commemorates an attempt to point the finger of a crime falsely at a minority, an attempt to unleash the might of the British Army on peaceful natives. It really is disgraceful.
Speaking of minorities, these ‘Skins so beloved by Federal bureaucrats were the very last team in the NFL to integrate, and they did so with great reluctance and in a pretty surly, bad tempered way. The suspicion is that they did so only because the Department of the Interior owned their then stadium (typical) and the Kennedy administration was not impressed at seeing a non-integrated team in the nation’s capital — not really Camelot!
There are sports bars in the DC region with affiliations other than the ‘Skins, but they are nearly as rare as hens’ teeth. I used to frequent a Steelers bar with my friend Father Jack out toward Dulles on fall Sunday afternoons, until the BATF hit it. “Hands on the table — don’t reach for anything, not even your cutlery — don’t make our day.” I am sure the BATF agents were all ‘Skins fans.
The result is a cloying, all pervading, overarching pro-Redskins atmosphere that is not healthy. I recall taking elder son Miles to pre-K one Monday morning in say 1986; he was proudly wearing his brand new Dallas Cowboys shirt, a gift from Uncle Leonard. A female teacher stopped us in the corridor:
Teacher, somewhat condescendingly and pointing at said shirt: “Mr. Blundell, don’t you know this is Redskins country?”
Blundell in his best posh British accent: “Oh I am terribly sorry. I thought the Cowboys were America’s Team!”
If this were a comic strip, the next panel would show a woman with a screwed up face looking at the heavens, elbows stuck firmly into her ribs and clenched fists raised by her jaw, with a thought bubble reading “Argh! *&#%@?+^#*&.”
So as the population of the Swamp changes every election cycle, waves of well-meaning (I am being charitable) men and women, true sports fans who support good honest teams that play in privately owned stadiums, sweep in and are corrupted into supporting the Redskins. You can’t chat at the water cooler or over coffee or at lunch unless you are in the Skindom. It is so sad, but then Washington believes in monopolies such as currency issuance, taxation, and regulation.
When good internationally proven liberty-minded folk such as me confront these so-called libertarian Redskins we receive really mealy-mouthed responses, typical of which is “Oh, when I think of Washington I think of the person not the place!” Right! These people are confused and confusing, embarrassed and embarrassing, and not to be trusted until they go through therapy.
There is only one good reason for the continued existence of the Landover Looters, and it is simply this: every single time they lose, which is well over 50% recently, absenteeism within the Federal government soars the following Monday. This can only be a good thing.
But there is a solution for the Landover Looters problem. The team should move to Syracuse in upstate New York and become the Syracuse “Washington’s Redskins” with the nickname of the “Waistcoats.” Let me explain. George Washington signed a treaty with the Oneida Nation in that area to fight the Brits. So to the extent that Washington Redskins exist free of deceit, capture, and vainglory they are in the Syracuse-Finger Lakes region.
Why Waistcoats? Because Washington wore them and it’s probably a better nickname than “the big girls’ blouses,” which is what I call “libertarians” who support the Landover Looters.
